City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Monday, January 5th, 2026 city commission meeting. Would you please join the commission in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Would you please call the role? Commissioner Jorgensson here. Commissioner Zundell here. Commissioner Jardis here. Commissioner Olsen here. Commissioner Anderson here.

Let the record show all commissioners are present. Item D of the of our meeting agenda is to approve the order of the agenda. It has been presented and in your packets. Motion to approve. Commissioner Jorgensson moves to approve. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Anderson seconds. I have a motion and a second to approve the order of the agenda for Monday, January 5th as presented. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. opposed. Motion carried. Next order of business is to approval of the minutes of December 15th, 2025. Again, they have been distributed and are in front of you. Move to approve. Commissioner Olsson moves to approve. Is there a second? Second.

Commissioner Zundell second. I have a motion and a second to approve uh the minutes of December 15th. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. Opposed. Motion carried. Thank you. Item F, building permits. Commissioner Jorgensson, I would like to recuse myself from the vote, please. Let the record show that Commissioner Jorgensson is recused from the building permit report. Again, Commissioners, it have been distributed and in your packet. Commissioner Zundell moves to approve. Commissioner Anderson seconds. We have a motion and a second to approve the building permits as presented. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. opposed. Motion carried. Next order of business is the consent agenda. On the consent agenda this evening, we have items A through F. Commissioner Olsen moves to approve. Commissioner Zundell seconds. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented, items A through F. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I opposed. Motion carried. Thank you. We now move into the regular agenda. Item number one is public comment. Madam Secretary, has anyone signed up for public comment this evening?

I did not have anyone. Okay. Public comment is closed. We move to item number two. Item number two is a public hearing in the first reading of A25-23 Meyer, second edition, a request for approval of a zoning change from residential 2 to commercial. Aaron Nelson, director of planning and zoning. Good evening. Welcome.

Thank you and good evening, President Dartis and commissioners. So item two is a request for zone change from R2 limited multiple dwelling residential to C light commercial. The specific requested action today is to hold a public hearing and to approve the first reading of the resoning ordinance. The subject property is a vacant lot located at 1202 Prairie Parkway owned by Western State State Bank shown here on your screen. Uh if approved, the owner intends to construct a parking lot on the property to support their adjacent commercial office space. Staff finds the proposed resoning to be consistent with city plans and ordinances as outlined in the staff report. And this request comes to you with a recommendation uh for approval from the planning and zoning commission. So with that, I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have for staff. Otherwise, the owner's uh representative is here as well should you have any questions for the applicant.

Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Commissioner, you have any questions on this item? Motion to approve.

Commissioner Jorgensson moves to approve. Is there excuse me, we're getting ahead of ourselves. This is a public hearing. Is there any discussion? Any questions for Mr. Nelson? Hearing? None. We move out of the regular agenda and we are now in the public hearing. Is Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on this item? Again, this is a reasonzoning change for A25-23 Meyer, second edition. Is there anyone that would like to speak in favor of this? Is there anyone that would like to speak in favor? Hearing none, is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to A25-3 Meyer second edition? Is there anyone that would like to speak against? Again, is there anyone that would like to speak against this zoning change from R2 to light commercial? Hearing no comments. Public hearing is closed. Commissioners

move we approve. Commissioner Zundell moves to approve the first reading of A25-23 Meyer second edition and approve a zoning change of R2 to light commercial. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Jorgensson seconds. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carried. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Item number three on the regular agenda is a flood plane management ordinance amendment. We're going to call on Jerry Wallace, city engineer for the city of West Fargo. Purpose of this discussion is the second reading to adopt the flood plan management ordinance amendment. Good evening, Mr. Wallace, and welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Commission, President and Commissioners. Uh I'm here before you tonight again to uh go through the second reading uh to adopt the flood plane management ordinance amendment. Uh essentially uh Senate Bill 2027 passed last year uh just requires that uh in order to continue uh in-house flood plane management uh we need to make uh some minor amendments to the ordinance uh to continue compliance with Century Code. Um, with that, uh, I I'm available for any questions you might have. Questions for Mr. Wallace? Anyone? Move to approve second reading.

Commissioner Anderson moves to approve second reading of the flood plan management ordinance amendment. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Olsen seconds. We have a motion and a second to approve second reading to adopt the flood plan management ordinance amendment. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carried. Thank you, Mr. Time.

Item number four is an improvement district 2265, 9th Street, and 7th Avenue Northeast are reconstruction. We call on Mr. Dan Hansen, senior director of community and development services. Purpose of this discussion is to accept the bid and award a contract. Mr. H. Good evening and welcome.

Thank you, Commissioner, President Dartis, and Commissioners. Uh, pleased to announced on December 12th, 2025, the DOT opened up bids for the reference project. Uh, we had a total of nine bids that ranged anywhere between 13,755,418.30 to $18,623,92.84 84 with the lowest responsible bidder being Northern Improvement Company in the amount of 13,755,418.30 uh which was uh 28.78% lower than the engineers estimate uh at the time of the bid which would have been $19,313,000. So, uh it was a very uh uh sought-after project by the construction community and we did get uh fantastic bids from this. Um jumping down, uh I'll I'll kind of skip the background of the project summary. This has been in front of the commission a number of times, but uh one thing that is uh very important to note is that from the financial analysis, uh the grants that we were able to secure uh will basically pay for 100% of the construction costs of the project. uh outside of the water main and the sanitary sewer which are non-eligible um costs. Um but outside of that, the STBG funds uh and also the state's flex funding that we got through the DOT uh covered covers all of that. Um when we got the bids that came in uh at the prices that they were, uh the DOT had notified uh our consultant Houston Engineering that they uh were going to um use up all of the STBG funds that were the federal funds that we got through Metricco and out of the remaining flex funds, which is statef funded dollars, uh they were going to be able to return some of that back to the program. And uh I'm happy to announce that I had uh some discussions with them

and uh the DOT graciously uh stuck with the ability for us to use those funds to pay for soft some of the soft costs on the project including all of the engineering that had been done post April 4th of last year all the way through uh through construction. any change orders that we have, we're going to be able to apply these flex fund dollars towards that as well as the construction administration, the testing allowance, and also uh you'll see in an upcoming commission meeting, we're going to be renting and leasing some land adjacent to the project for a layown yard and stockpile site. Uh they've also agreed that we can use those flex funds towards that um uh work as well. So in the end uh that lowered our local cost share by about $2.5 million. So uh in the end uh there if you way down in the packet uh there's a basically I went back to the original engineer statement of cost that we had with the engineers report and basically took the financial page and just used uh redid that for a perspective. Here we are. So, by the time that we uh get done with the estimated total cost of the project of $22,880,000, apply the flex funds, the federal funds, uh that brings the local share down to $5,832,820 of which that uh some of that is the water and sewer as I had mentioned and the rest of that would be 70% of the soft costs which follows our 2022 uh CIP policy for assessments on major arterial uh roadways under a regional uh assessment. And that leaves the 30% that would be the city's cost of those uh remaining costs uh which would be split up between mostly capital improvement

sales tax and then also there has been some platting fee and L funds uh for recent plats that have been done in that area that can be applied towards our portion of this project because there are some multi-use uh trail bike paths and and things like that that would be used where there is no real neighborhood park needed or anything like that in that area for for the park district to use. So, um so anyways, um breaking it all down at the end of the day, uh the actual total amount coming out of our capital improvement sales tax after everything is calculated out is estimated to be about $1.4 million on a 22.8 $22.9 million project. So, um things are coming together very well for it. Um so uh that brings me to the ask today of the commission is to accept the bid and award the contract to Northern Improvement in the amount of uh 13,755,41830. And with that I will uh stand for any questions.

Questions for Mr. Hansen. Commissioners move we approve. Commissioner Zundell moves to approve. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Anderson seconds. We have a motion and a second to approve the accept the bid and award the contract to Northern Improvement on uh improvement district number 2265 which is 9th Street and 7th Avenue Northeast Reconstruction. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carried it. Thank you.

So the work that and let me give credit to Mr. Scott and Mr. Hansen both uh this was brought to my attention uh a while back that we were having very positive results not only with the bid but with the conversation that Mr. Hansen was having with the North Dakota DOT. uh he was a little guarded in uh he had a verbal commitment from them but he didn't have it in writing yet and uh at the advice of I would give credit to Mr. Scott, we said, uh, let's make sure that we have it in writing and that came through. But your diligence, your pre perseverance of getting this done is a great savings to the city of West Fargo. So, thank you, sir.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Nice job. Item number five is a water purchase agreement with Cass Rural Water Users District. We're going to call on Matt Anvik, the senior director of public works. Good evening, Mr. Anvic, and welcome.

Good evening. Sorry. Good evening, Commissioner President, commissioners. Uh, tonight we're looking for the approval for the water purchase agreement with uh, Castro Water District. Um, this agreement establishes the terms uh, which West Fargo will sell the treated water to Castro Water users in the specific developments. Uh, and this agreement just supplements the existing water service cooperation agreement. Uh the initial term of the agreement is for 5 years uh with a rate of $110 per thousand gallons above what the city of Fargo sells um the water to us for. Uh and that's between 2026 and 2029. Uh so I'll ask for the approval uh the purchase agreement and I'll stand for any questions.

Questions for Mr. Anbeck? Move we approve. Commissioner Olsson moves to approve the water purchase agreement with Cass Rural Water Uses District as presented. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Zundal seconds. We have a motion and a second to accept the water purchase agreement with Cass Rural Water Users District. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carried. Thank you, Mr.

Thank you. Item number six is to approve the second reading and adopt an ordinance number 1266 regarding the municipal judge. We call on Dustin Scott, city administrator. Good evening, Mr. Scott, and welcome.

Good evening, Commission President Dardis and commissioners. On December 15th, the city commission held a public hearing and approved the first reading for this ordinance. During the public hearing, Judge Barkcus did offer comments for the commission's consideration. Uh the first reading was approved without changes. So the original draft is before you this evening and our recommendation is to uh approve the second reading and make the final adoption of ordinance uh 1266. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions for Mr. Scott? Anyone?

Move to approve second reading. Commissioner Anderson moves to approve the second reading and adopt the ordinance of 1266 regarding the municipal judge. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Jorgensson seconds. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hear none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carried. Thank you. We now move on to item number seven. Again, we call on Dustin Scott, city administrator with a report on the Moody's Moody's ratings. Mr. Scott,

thank you again, President Dartis. Uh, happy to uh end the year 2025 with some good news from Moody's ratings. the uh the uh Moody's Ratings has reaffirmed our uh A big A little A3 rating, double A3 rating um which we've been able to maintain since 2022. It's not really a perfect comparison, but it's fair enough to think of this kind of like a credit report. Someone's credit report, you know, a a good credit rating is 7800, right? This is a a really good strong rating for for the city of West Fargo. Uh it does reflect our financial health management practices and ability to meet our debt obligations. Maintaining a strong rating helps keep borrowing costs lower, which is absolutely critical as we continue investing in our infrastructure, public safety, and and continue to expand and grow. Uh before I answer any questions, I do want to thank Willie, our finance director, and uh Sheila, our senior accountant, for all of their work and diligence and coordinating everything with Moody's and keeping our finance team uh and finances top-notch. So, with that, happy to answer any questions.

Questions for Mr. Scott? Commissioner Anderson. Um excuse me. Looking at this uh at the report here, it talks about some factors that could lead to an upgrade of the ratings or even downgrade. Um are we tracking any of these metrics or KPIs within our reporting? And if not, is there plans to that we can get an idea of which direction we should be heading or have a better idea of where where we sit from a credit perspective?

Yes, absolutely. Thanks, Commissioner Anderson. A lot of the tracking is really done through our auditing process. So, a lot of that information is in our audits. Um, specific KPIs and there are some things that I don't know for sure if we're tracking per se. Um, if there's something specific, I can have Willie come up here maybe address that a little more uh detailed, but I'd say a lot of the information is generally tracked and is a part of our auditing process. So, we are keeping tabs on those those things, things like our our our debt service uh responsibilities, where we're at with those um so on so forth. And there are a lot of factors that go into how Moody's develops their issuer rating. So, um I'd say yes and no, not everything, but for the most part, a lot of that information is is tracked through our auditing process. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. This is anformational only item. We move on to number item number eight. U backup generator for city hall. Mr. Scott.

Yes. Thank you again, Commissioner President Dartis. So on Friday morning, there was a power power outage in this area. Affected city hall, Rustad Center, uh some of the local neighborhoods. wasn't a big outage, but it was it was um significant enough where city hall here was offline and without power for a couple hours. Thankfully, it was on a Friday morning on a holiday week. So, uh it wasn't overly disruptive. It uh power went out around 6:20 a.m. and I think was back on within a couple hours. So, um we made do. It was interesting to see people at least we have flashlights on our phones. Most people have a phone. So, um it it um we got by for that for that morning. However, uh it did uh respspark, no pun intended, uh the conversation on backup generator. About a year ago, we did apply for funding through the Department of Emergency Services. Uh we were not successful in getting grant funding to install a backup generator. So, we we really just we didn't pursue it any further. However, uh Friday's lesson was um thoughtprovoking and that we do need to have a consideration of of backup power. Um there are varying capacities at which you can back up a building, things like um simply just getting the lights back on and maintaining our IT systems to fully energizing the entire facility. So, what I'm asking for tonight is uh authorization to move forward in preparing and advertising an RFP where we can solicit uh quotes for various backup generator options, bring that back uh to the commission for consideration. Uh and in the meantime, we will revisit the grant opportunities that are out there. Maybe something's changed in the last few months. uh maybe we just need to relook at the application that we submitted and is there anything in there that we can change to uh have a successful

application. So um again tonight asking to move forward with issuing an RFP uh for a backup generator. With that I'll stand for any questions. Questions for Mr. Scott? I think it's a great idea and we should move ahead with it. Thank you. Is that a motion? Sure. I have a motion to uh have the city administrator move forth with an RFP with with regarding to backup generation of this facility. This facility alone. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Zundell seconds. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Motion carried. Mr. Scott, is this going to be uh kind of an alle cart type thing that not only the cost of the generator for it and lights, but the possibility of um you know, if we have a major catastrophe in the region, this might be a hub, if you will, for emergency services or and the same goes for knowing what the installation costs are. So we'll have a full we'll have a choice of of how we proceed.

Yes, Mr. President. Uh in all cart is a perfect way to put that. We or at least we envision that we would solicit um information from the from the uh private community where we will not only understand what the pricing would be for various capacities of backup power but understand what are the lead times. Uh does it take um 6 months to get here versus uh submitter aid? can get something here in two months, you know. So, we want to put all of that information out there, get as many options as we can for the city to consider what is in their best interest to move forward. U as it relates to uh emergency services, for example, uh we do have our active EOC is um between fire headquarters and the police department. There are capabilities there, but do we want this to be another opportunity to invite whether it's any any other community member or agency partner that might benefit from having an online facility if the power does go out. So, we're going to explore all those things and yes, bring forward an allocart

very good option. Thank you. I know I as I serve on the board of the Red River Dispatch and the backup generator there was late in arriving. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Next order of business is the city administrator's report. Again, Mr. Scott.

Yes. Thank you again, Commission President Darvis and commissioners. Just one update for you this evening regarding our search for a new HR director. Um I I believe I mentioned before that we did have 34 applications strong um uh interest in in the position. We did narrow that down and offered an interview to six candidates. Of those six, four have accepted an interview. So we will be conducting the interviews with four candidates next week. From there we aim to identify two or three finalists and conduct another round of interviews in late January. So, um, we're taking our time with this. We want to find the right fit, not only from a qualification standpoint technically, but also a cultural fit. So, uh, we might end up with two or three phases of of, uh, a process to to make that selection. So, again, uh, interviews next week with four candidates. And with that, uh, any stand for any questions?

Commissioners, any questions regarding that? Okay. Thank you. continue. I'll leave you with just a happy new year and we look forward to tackling 2026 together. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. All correspondence has been distributed and in your mailboxes. Does any commissioner have any non-aggenda item they'd like to bring forward at this time? No. Any department have have anything non-aggenda item that you'd like to bring forward at this time? With that, Commissioner Anderson move to adjourn. Commissioner Olson second.